TAMPA, Fla. — Cruisers talked with Spectrum Bay News 9 about the decision to proceed with their vacations as planned despite the State Department’s advisory against taking cruises.

The bags are packed, plans made.

“We had this planned for six months and we're not worry warts,” said Chad Duerkop, who flew to Tampa from Wisconsin. "You gotta live."

note - flying to another state for a cruise is a little bonkers, no? Just pay for the ticket to the destination of the cruise and call it a day.

That last line is interesting.

"You gotta live."

As everyone already knows, taking a monster boat packed with hundreds and hundreds (probably a lot less considering this whole coronavirus thing is going on) of random people to a random island is the very definition of L I V I N G. Coronavirus or not, who doesn't want to travel the world via boat just like the fucking 1800s?? I know I sure do!

No, but seriously, fuck cruises. If you're a cruise person, I'm just convinced that you're just too poor to buy a plane ticket and actually go somewhere. Instead, you buy your little cruise ticket and sit out on the ocean for a week like a dummy. Have you ever seen the Titanic? Yeah, thanks but no thanks. You won't be catching this guy on a cruise ship anytime soon.

People are saying my hatred of cruise ships is bred from jealousy of the kids in school who would just miss a week of school to go and sail the fucking oceans. Sure, I may have asked a few times to go on a cruise in middle school. Big whoop. It was more of an 'I want to miss school' situation rather than the actual desire to be stranded at sea. Not to mention, cartoons always made cruises seem like an absolute whale of a time.

But I quickly learned that cruises are white trash, like a real adult.

Also, the coronavirus is fucking up cruise ships. There have been severalinstances now of cruise ships just being stranded with nowhere to go because of coronavirus ridden passengers. That is the literal definition of a nightmare. Being stuck on a ship in the middle of the ocean with a killer virus running rampant on the ship. This virus doesn't take breaks either. These suckers could be loading up onto this cruise feeling no symptoms whatsoever and all of a sudden, BOOM, coronavirus.

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I'd be willing to risk my health so that I could get a couple of pics for the gram in the Grand Caymans. Sure, I'd probably look fantastic in the tropical islands. A nice Hawaiian shirt, a nice pair of shorts, a straw hat perhaps chef kiss - but then again, it's all fun and games until these people are quarantined for the foreseeable future because they simply couldn't handle canceling their cruise. They've been counting down the days for six months! They couldn't possibly cancel. Then again…

"You gotta live."

PS - the only reason I'd ever go on a cruise is because of those wave things. You know, the machine that creates waves and is in literally every cruise commercial ever.

I'd probably eat all of the shit in the world trying to do this but it always looked incredible.